Real-time processing of indexical and generic expressions: Insights from, and implications for, COVID-related public health messages

Abstract

We used COVID-related health messages to investigate the incremental processing of expressions such as you, we and people in generic contexts, to further our understanding of how these kinds of expressions are processed in real-time and to explore whether the ease of comprehending public health messages related to the COVID pandemic is influenced by type of referring expression. Results from a self-paced reading study point to an increased processing load in messages with the non-indexical form people (relative to we and you), which we suggest is separable from effects of word length and frequency. We interpret this as preliminary support for the Indexicality Hypothesis, which posits that expressions which can in principle receive indexical interpretations are easier to process than non-indexicals, and also emphasize the need for further work on these kinds of questions.